


Unspoken, But Not Unfelt

by AceQueenKing



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Family Secrets, Feelings, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 14:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: There are words that do not pass between their lips.





	Unspoken, But Not Unfelt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeCarabas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/gifts).



There are words that do not pass between their lips.

Leliana tells a great many stories to her, in the dark hours of the night, when neither can sleep. She talks to her of the Maker, of traveling with the wardens. Fiona is thankful.  There are many stories she can think of in the dark, but the ones she thinks of tend to not be so comforting. There's a relief in hearing about the trials when she knows how the story ends: with her son, alive, and well, and a hero. 

"And what about this Templar - Alistair?" She asks, feigning ignorance. Leliana laughs and kisses her cheek. She does not ask a follow-up question, careful not to reveal a truth too damaging. Even Fiona can barely think of him, her soul aching at the mere thought. It has been a lot of time and perhaps, too much time. Alistair has taken after his father, a king ruling over a large land. He has far surpassed his serving girl mother, to such a point it seems beyond cruel to reveal his origins to him.

But still, the thought weighs.

Leliana, though she cannot possibly know why, subtly alters her tales for her, Fiona notices. Most would not notice, but Fiona is not most. She has not forgotten how to survive, and being observant is a large part of how she has lived so long. Alistair slides into the tales more readily, more easily. Leliana makes it a point to tell tales of Alistair's heroics - decapitating the traitor Loghain, decimating a million darkspawn as the night lamps burned down in Redcliffe Village. 

It's unsaid, but surely Leliana wonders, Fiona thinks. Yet she doesn't ask, and Fiona is happy with it. She rests her head on Leliana's shoulder, and, though she still cannot sleep, she rests. And perhaps that is enough. 

\---

Leliana has her secrets too.  The night is long, but her regrets are many. Perhaps it is because she has started another relationship with an older Orlesian woman, but her thoughts have dwelt on Marjolaine greatly for the past few weeks. She wonders how she is doing; if she has moved on. She wonders if, now that Leliana is more public about her role, Marjolaine will re-appear from the woodwork, her revenge screaming in Leliana's face. She is careful not to mention Marjolaine except when it is absolutely vital, a matter of fact that she was there when she tells her stories to Fiona. She knows Fiona must suspect it, but she knows too that Fiona will never bother to ask about the details Leliana hides.

Fiona is her first lover who has ever had any sense of tact. She is not like her warden lover, long dead, so prone to being open in both her expressions and her love. Even Marjolaine had no sense of tact, often shouting her affections like and parading Leliana like a piece of meat. Fiona does not say her love, but her actions shout it - the way she brings Leliana secrets, fancy honey, fancier teas; the way she comes up to the Library's highest tower, late at night, and leans into Leliana's arm when she cannot sleep. Fiona knows who she is, what she is, the blood she has poured - and yet still, she trusts her, puts her body in Leliana's arms, her lips on Leliana's lips. It is a thing somewhat sacred, she thinks; it is something to hold onto, in troubling times.  Fiona is discrete in their relationship, never putting Leliana in a situation where she might feel uncomfortable, and this too is appreciated.  For a storyteller, she prefers to be a quiet woman in her own affairs and Fiona respects this. Fiona does not gossip her secrets, nor does she jealously make catty talk with the other mages. She has her own ways of showing affection, but they are small, subtle, the sort of signs someone who doesn't pay as much attention as they do could miss. 

It isn't Fiona's fault the one time Fiona errs, bringing a tea that Marjolaine once so loved pressed in a striking purple cloth. 

She sees the look on Leliana's face (Fiona is nothing if not observant, a bard like her) and Leliana quickly apologizes, saying, "I'm sorry, it reminds me of - " 

"Marjolaine," Fiona says, softly, then throws it downwards through the spiraling empty space of the library. It lands in Solas' library with a quiet - but somehow deafening - thud. And Leliana burns for her with a love they leave unspoken, but not uncelebrated. 

\---

"How did you know?" Fiona asks, eventually, after Solas is long gone and his long plan is revealed. 

"About Solas?" Leliana grunts. "I didn't. I didn't see it coming early enough. That's rather the problem." 

"With Marjolaine." She says, quietly. "How did you know you shouldn't be treated that way?" 

"Because I found the Maker, and the Maker loved me better and led me to the Hero of Ferelden," she says, throwing an arm around her lover. She leaves out the parts about how she so loved the hero. It would be crass to say. But the Hero of Ferelden, her warden, never saw her burning bright. When the choice came for who would live and who would die, the Warden laid down her life, a gesture that deafened all others for many years. It is only now that Leliana has become able to hear soft noises again, to see the subtle curl of her lover's neck in her hand. "And it became much clearer still after I came here because I found you." 

"Mm," Fiona says, curling close to her love. "It's amazing you were able to realize it. It took me decades to come to terms with what happened to me with Maric." Fiona leaves unsaid what he did to her. But Lelaina, somehow, knows. Perhaps it is that as long as women like them have been around, there have been others willing to abuse them. Perhaps it is that they have both been abused. Perhaps it is that they are both, still, moving on, works in progress. 

"I'm sorry," Leliana says, and wonders what it says about her mood that she does not feel at all surprised about how Cailan's father treated the poor elven servant. She feels angry, but - not surprised. "You should not have been treated that way."

"Nor you," Fiona says, resolutely. Then: "I will never treat you that way, Leliana."

"Nor I you," she swears, her hand curling around Fiona's. They have both endured much hardship, but this much is true: their secrets are ghosts buried behind them. They have one another, and there will be no secrets here. Instead, there is only love, and things left unsaid, but not unfelt. 


End file.
